A company behind the doomed snow centre plans has been wound up as the Tees Valley Combined Authority takes action to recover taxpayers’ cash it handed the firm.
In 2018, the TVCA gave Cool Runnings NE Ltd £250,000 – at the time Tees Valley Mayor Ben Houchen said it was “extra financial support to get the project over the line”. However, in October 2020 Middlesbrough Mayor Andy Preston said the proposals for the £40m snow centre didn’t stack up financially and by February 2021 the council had abandoned the plans.
At the time, a spokesperson for Subzero accused the council of making a politically motivated decision, however, the council’s chief executive Tony Parkinson denied this and blamed the developer for not delivering what it said it could.
Middlesbrough Council had contractual relationships with Cool Runnings NE Ltd and another
firm, Twenty13 Developments Ltd, for the project, however, from April 2019 these arrangements were then consolidated and superseded by a binding relationship with Subzero (Middlehaven) Ltd. This was the company that went on to submit a planning application to the council for the snow centre at Middlehaven Dock.
Since the council announced it would not be moving forward with the plans, the TVCA has been trying to claw back some of the £250,000.
Rachael Howson is director of Subzero and a former director of Cool Runnings after resigning in June 2022. She previously said that £180,000 was provided as a grant and £70,000 was a loan. She added that neither needed to be repaid if the snow centre did not go ahead.
In the most recent update, a TVCA spokesperson said: “The combined authority has taken, and is taking, a number of steps in seeking to recover the monies. On 4 July 2022, we issued a statutory demand which required payment of the loan element of the money. This was unpaid.
“We subsequently issued a winding up petition which was served on the company Cool Runnings (NE) Ltd. The petition was heard on 20 December, and an order was made at the hearing.
“As a consequence of the order being made, the insolvency service will now pick it up and we are cooperating with them as required.”
A winding-up petition is when creditors apply to court to close down a company. If that is successful, the insolvency service takes over and recoups what it can.
The TVCA does not know how much money will be returned as it depends on how much the service finds in the company and how many other groups are also owed. It’s understood that the liquidators and any outstanding tax would be paid first.
The latest accounts for the company were due on September 30 2022 but have yet to be filed. According to the accounts for the year ending September 30 2020, the company had £411 in tangible assets, £281,148 in stocks, and it owed £107,557 to creditors within the following year.
It owed another £231,500 after more than a year, leaving the firm with a negative balance of £56,915. Ms Howson declined to comment.
